All That's Left of Yesterday
by Cygna-hime
Summary: [Rated for mentioned death] Post-Impact; Kurt deals with the reality of his mother's death. [No pairings, songfic, contains Schizophrenic!Kurt]


All That's Left of Yesterday  
  
Hello, all! I'm your host, Cygna, a.k.a. The Insane One, and I authored this story. Which you get to read! Aren't you lucky?  
  
Random Voice: NOT.  
  
Hah. Hah. And also, hah. Please pay no attention to the cynic behind the curtain. Now, who knows what I don't own copyrights to?  
  
R.V.: Brain cells. But also, X-Men: Evolution.  
  
Okay, half credit to Voice. I do not, in fact, own X-Men in any incarnation, and I don't know who does. I only know that Kurt's not mine. *pouts* Life is cruel. Hey, guess what else I don't own?  
  
R.V.: Evanescence. Although goodness knows you hum those songs enough.  
  
Mean. True, but mean. So, all and sundry, consider yourself disclaimed.  
  
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS for 'Impact'. If you don't know what happens, DO NOT READ.  
  
Feedback is God. Criticism is accepted. Praise is taken with a grain of salt.  
  
~Playground school bell rings again Rain clouds come to play again~  
  
Kurt sits on the window seat, knees pulled up to his chin, and stares. Just stares. In the distance, the high school's class bell chimes out its only melody. He doesn't care. Kurt Wagner, normal kid, won't be in school today. He's hiding inside a melancholy freak hiding inside a hologram. When the school calls, Professor X tells them there was a death in his family. More accurate to say there was the death of his family. The raindrops trickle down the windowpanes like tears. How ironic. Maybe the sky would cry for her, since nobody else would.  
  
~Has no one told you she's not breathing? ~  
  
Nobody but her son, who sits and looks out at the soggy lawn, the bowed and dripping trees, and thinks. Thinks about his mother, the only blood family he had. Thinks about his other family, the nice sugar-cooky-smelling couple who raised a blue-furred freak of nature as their own, and only told him when he was leaving that he wasn't their son. Thinks about the incredible chance that he was found by people who wouldn't kill him on sight. Thinks maybe they should have.  
  
~Hello I'm your mind giving you someone to talk to~  
  
No, his mind whispers, you should not have died. Why, he answers, is my life so wonderful? Yes, he defies, it's a life, and all you're getting. Don't waste it now. He laughs harshly. Too late, he sneers, I wasted it long ago. No, he begs, you didn't, not at all. Oh, and how do you figure that? He snarls. Only think, he whispers, of all the people who lived that surely would have died but for you. Remember those you saved. All right, he concedes, but I could have saved so many more! I could have saved her, he tries not to say, but; No, he replies, you did all you could, more than you could, you can't be everywhere, do everything. It's not your fault, he insists. Okay, it isn't, he agrees.  
  
~Hello~  
  
But he doesn't believe it.  
  
~If I smile and don't believe Soon I know I'll wake from this dream~  
  
It was too hard to believe, that anything so horrible could possibly happen. And if it had, Kurt reasons, it could only be because someone had done something terribly wrong. And the only person at hand was himself. So he must be at fault. Of course, it is 'Normal' Kurt who reasons. The blue elfin person he thinks of as 'Real' Kurt is curled in a corner, sobbing his heart out. 'Real' Kurt can't believe such a thing truly happened. Neither can 'Normal' Kurt, but it's a different kind of disbelief. 'Normal' Kurt honestly doesn't think it happened. 'Real' Kurt has already begun to deal with it.  
  
~Don't try to fix me I'm not broken~  
  
Whenever anyone comes in with a sympathetic look and trite words of comfort, Kurt forces a smile and thanks them. He knows they're worrying about him, but he doesn't...really...care. They aren't family, not true family, and they can't replace the true family he's lost.  
  
~Hello I'm the lie living for you so you can hide~  
  
Sitting there, watching it rain, he finds that he does care after all. Maybe he'll go down for dinner later, just to show he's okay. That's pure falsehood, of course. He isn't okay, will probably never be okay again, but it will make them feel better. Maybe he won't. They'll just wonder why he's keeping his hologram up.  
  
~Don't cry~  
  
What he won't tell them is that the hologram is still there so that the normal Kurt can be just that, normal. If he lets it go, he'll cry, and he doesn't want to cry. That would be admitting that she's gone for good. He doesn't want to do that. But he knows he already has.  
  
~Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping~  
  
There is only one of the X-Men who hasn't been to visit him with empty words, and that's the one he most wants to see. She comes in at last, shutting the door softly behind her. She's holding something wrapped in layer after layer of black cloth. Kurt smiles sadly for her.  
"Hello, Rogue." That's all he says, and she winces at the silence. Things aren't supposed to be like this; Kurt is never quiet, he fills the awkward silences for everyone. So she tries;  
"Hello, Kurt." She can't say anything conventional, nothing can be strong enough. "I'm sorry."  
"Don't be." His words are brief, for once in his life. "I know you and she didn't get along." He marvels at how easily the past tense slides across his lips. She's gone.  
"I went down to-to where she-to the bottom of the cliff, and I found-here." She hands him the swathed bundle. "Open it alone." Closing the door to leave, she says, "I'm glad somebody else loved her," and two tears drop onto the carpet. She goes out, leaving Kurt alone again.  
  
~Hello I'm still here~  
  
Puzzled, he unwraps the package. Within the dark folds lies a piece of stone, a face already graven into his memory. Mystique's face looks just as it had when she fell. No, not quite, her expression is changed. She's smiling now; tender, almost peaceful. Kurt lifts her gently in shaking palms. He feels his eyes mist over with tears at last. Gently, ever so gently, he sets her in the center of his mantelpiece. Looking at her maternal smile, he feels the first tears trickle down his cheeks to join the rain. Absently, he reaches over and turns off his image inducer. He doesn't need it now. She's not gone. Not really.  
  
~All that's left of yesterday~  
  
He speaks to her in a choked voice, quiet, happily sad.  
"Welcome home, Mother."  
  
THE END.  
  
Ending Notes: Please note; the way these characters behave is my view on how they would behave based on their personalities as interpreted by me. If you disagree, tell me so in a well-thought out, spell- checked review.  
  
The song was 'Hello' by Evanescence. The characters are still not mine.  
  
Reviews are life. Criticism is taken in the spirit in which it is given. Extravagant praise is taken with a grain of salt. Spelling errors are corrected. Flames are MSTed. So gimme some reviews please! 


End file.
